Our Dog, coughing and Torbutrol. Help!

This is a discussion on Our Dog, coughing and Torbutrol. Help! within the Dog Health forums, part of the Keeping and Caring for Dogs category; Hi there, first post here
We have a 13 year old Tibetan Spaniel who has a partly collapsed Brochi. As a result he coughs. The ...

We have a 13 year old Tibetan Spaniel who has a partly collapsed Brochi. As a result he coughs. The Vet prescribed a cocktail of drugs that keeps him pretty cough-free. He is on two types of inhaler, Corvental, Prednisolone and Torbutrol.

On a daily basis he is in otherwise very good health, in fact had a great walk with him and his bro' yesterday. The trouble is that the manufacturer of Torbutrol, Pfizer, has stopped making it and won't start again until somewhen in 2012. We have had trouble getting the drug and he ran out about 2 months back, he was in a right state struggling to breathe. In the end we sourced some more Torb' and he was fine again.

The only other medicine that the Vet suggested we try in place of Torb' was Codine, it didn't work.

So we face the prospect of having to put our dog down if we can't get the drug, because he goes downhill so fast without the drug its frightening. But he is otherwise so fit and healthy its just a crying shame. We have phoned loads of Internet vets who are all out of stock....

So has anyone got any experience of something else that may help. All the other drugs he is on, help is lungs to breathe, but he needs the cough suppressing or else he just can't breathe properly.

Have you tried straight up pharmacies vs. veterinary sources? Many meds have a human/animal cross over and are available via a regular pharmacy. The Exec. Dir. here, for example, has a couple of Rx's that she picks up from her regular pharmacy that are for her dog.
How about getting in touch with the larger university veterinary schools? They may be able to turn you onto a resource you haven't tried yet.

my yorkie is in the same boat as yours, he's on a combo of Hycodan and apo-theo, it's working great, barely ever hear any coughing, I would go as far as saying that he's 98% cough free. I know he's so much more comfortable...
Also the torbutrol is much more expensive than the hycodan...

Our vet had a tiny bit left, we took what he had ands he said he would order more but couldn't.
We tried getting human form also. Nobody was able to find it, not to mention it was really expensive. Hycodan is very inexpensive and works really well.

Just doing some googling and found out that Hydrocodone (another name for Hycodan) is a Class A drug over here in the UK! Therefore I have no (legal) chance of getting it. However, I will be getting in touch with the vet anyway about this and the Tussigon.